The Spider and the Fly
by embraidery
Summary: Bart Curlish and Nadia Vulvokov are trapped in a traumatic time loop. The two women seek help from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, but it's hard for Dirk and the others to solve a case they forget each time the loop restarts. Meanwhile, the timelines begin to fracture in new and alarming ways. Will Dirk and Co. solve the case before it's too late?
1. Chapter 1

I wrote this for the Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Big Bang. Big thank you to my beta, flightinflame on ao3, and to my artist, marizetta on tumblr, who made this piece of art for this story. Note: this contains coarse language, violence, temporary death, usage of tobacco/alcohol/weed, references to overdose, harassment, and discussion of Nadia and Bart's childhood abuse.

* * *

_A noiseless patient spider,_

_I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,_

_Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,_

_It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,_

_Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them._

_And you O my soul where you stand, _

_Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,_

_Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,_

_Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,_

_Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul._

Walt Whitman

* * *

Coffee, Bart always thought, was disgusting. It tasted like dirt. It reminded her of eating on the road, eating out of the dumpster, dust between her teeth, dirt making its way into everything she owned.

But coffee is a necessary evil to live in this busy world full of businesspeople ducking into cabs and weaving between skyscrapers. Bart dilutes it with milk and drinks it through a straw. She's drinking some now, sitting on her living room floor, watching her cat Arthur soaking up the sunlight. She finishes the coffee and joins Arthur on the floor, scratching between his ears and listening to his deep rumbling purr.

When the coffee finally begins zipping around her veins like a tiny roller coaster on its tiny track, Bart gives Arthur a final pat and gets up. Her goal today is to look for a job. She lives with Ken. He brings in enough money from his dubious jobs to support both of them, but he says it would be good for her to have something to do. Something where she could make friends. She doesn't think she needs friends: Ken and Arthur are plenty. But Bart does want to make Ken happy. He explained resumes and cover letters to her last night, despite the fact that none of his current jobs required a resume. Bart doesn't know much about jobs, but she thinks that no resume is better than a resume that only says "holistic assassin."

The first step is getting dressed. She has new clothes now, clothes from a store! The process of getting naked and trying clothes on took some getting used to. Bart spent years nicking clothes off of clothes lines or from Goodwill donation boxes. But once she'd gotten used to it, she loved the feel of all these new fabrics on her newly-clean skin. She picked a pink tutu, white blouses, a velvety purple hoodie, several pairs of jeans, a leather jacket, and stacks and stacks of silky underwear in every single color available. For the job search, she puts on the jeans, white shirt, and hoodie.

Bart spends hours wandering through Seattle. There is always something new to learn about the city. There is always something new to see or hear or smell, even after a couple months here. Everything catches her attention. Sometimes the back of her mind pings and she pays a visit to the nearest shop. With each store that tells her they're not hiring, her polite and friendly smile gets a little smaller and a little less genuine. Bart gives up and stops to get lunch.

Bart finds a park bench and takes in the atmosphere. Birds flutter around throngs of tourists hoping for crumbs. A little white cat with orange splotches wanders by. Bart makes kissy noises at it and holds out her hand, but it ignores her. In the absence of anything else to do, Bart starts in on her ham'n'cheese sandwich. She pulls out the slices of soggy tomato and drops them on the ground, scaring a handful of pigeons. Bart's surprised by how good the sandwich is. Bart quickly got used to better food than she ate on the run, but every once in awhile she remembers how she used to eat and is deeply grateful for this kind of food. She crumples up the sandwich wrapper and lets it fall on the ground. Oh wait, she's not supposed to litter! Society has so many rules. She finds a trash can and drops the wrapper inside.

Bart goes into a shop across the way. It's almost empty except for a sharply-dressed woman with curly red hair looking at bags of chips. Bart goes up to the man at the counter, a pleasant-looking young guy with facial hair.

"Hi," Bart says. She pauses to remember what she has learned about being polite. "Would you please hire me?" She hears a snigger from behind her and whirls around. "What?" she snarls, before she remembers what she's working on. "What?" she asks, a little more softly.

The woman with red hair looks at her. "Have you ever applied for a job before?"

"I asked some people to give me a job this morning," Bart says. "Never before that."

The other woman flicks her eyes up and down over Bart. "Any luck?"

"No." Bart turns back to the man at the counter. "I really need a job. I will work hard, an' I won't kill people, an'-" Damn, she forgot not to mention the killing people thing again. It has been _such _a long day.

"Sorry, we're not hiring right now," says the man behind the counter.

"Good luck," the lady says, when Bart turns around. She lifts her packet of cigarettes in a kind of salute.

* * *

_And I'm always lost and never found, won't you give me what I need, _warbles the radio. It's a deliciously normal day at the agency. Dirk hums along with the radio as he makes coffee for himself and Todd (Farah only drinks tea). Mona's a pair of headphones today, gently embracing Farah's head as she taps one of her feet along to the music. Todd pretends not to be watching Dirk as he, Todd, avoids doing his work. The shitten sleeps curled up under a bush in the yard taking a catnap.

The bell above the door tinkles. Tina saunters in. "Goooooood morning!" she calls. She brandishes a tray of coffees and tea at them. "I brought drinks!"

Dirk and Farah come over to hug her. Tina sets the tray down so the drinks don't spill. The gang settles in on the couch in the back room and Farah turns on the TV. A solemn-faced newscaster announces that the mayor of Seattle resigned today after the recent discovery of voter fraud in his election. Everyone groans when the TV cuts to the Folgers incest ad. They're interrupted by snarls and animal screams from the yard.

Dirk runs to the door. The shitten and another cat whirl around the yard. Fur flies upward in clumps. Tina gets a glass of water and dumps it over the cats. They jump away from each other, hissing, ears pinned to their skulls. None of them recognize the other cat, a small white one with orange patches.

* * *

Bart leaves the store feeling more dejected than she has all day. She reclaims the bench from before and holds her aching head in her hands. After a few minutes, she gets up and goes back into the store. She takes a map off a rack full of them and examines it minutely. She knows how to find the apartment on a map, but she doesn't know where she is now. She goes up to the counter.

"Have you seen Oatmeal?" It's the same red-headed woman asking the man at the counter.

"Not yet, and there isn't any food missing from his bowl. I'm sorry. Are you okay, Nadia?"

She shrugs. "Ah, you know. We don't own cats, they own us, et cetera. See ya, Ferran." She trudges out of the store.

Bart watches her leave before spreading the map over the counter. "Where are we?"

Focused on the map as she is, she doesn't see Ferran looking at her curiously. "We're right here," he says, tapping the map. In her hours of wandering Bart has actually circled around so that she's only a short walk from her apartment.

"Thank you," she says, taking the map off the counter. Her lips move as she memorizes the route she'll take to get home.

"Are you going to be okay, ma'am?" Ferran asks.

Bart looks up in surprise. "Yeah. Yeah, I just need a job. I don' really need it, we have money, but Ken says I need 'something to do.' And friends, but I don' really need friends."

Ferran frowns. He watches Bart fold up the map and put it back on the rack without comment. "Good luck!" he calls after her as she leaves.

Bart gets lost in thought as she walks home. It's to her disadvantage. She doesn't notice as she enters an alleyway with foreboding figures at the other end. A slowly blinking neon sign shaped like a martini glass with an olive illuminates the alleyway with dim green light. It's accompanied by the smells of sickly sweet alcohol and acrid cigarette smoke wafting off three men leaning against the wall. By the time Bart notices, it's far too late to turn and walk back the opposite direction without being obvious. She walks past them, slowly but with purpose. She's confident in the knowledge that she has knives in the tops of her boots. Knives attract less attention than guns. She can't afford to get arrested now that she wants to stay in Seattle.

"Got a light?" One of the men licks the edge of his cigarette paper and holds up the finished cigarette. It's a perfect little cylinder. Bart looks at it from the corner of her eye.

"Nope," she says, still walking away.

One of the men reaches out and grabs her wrist. "Why don'cha be more polite?" he slurs.

Bart twists out of his grasp and continues down the alleyway. The other two men have popped up in front of her.

"Bitch," one of them says, spraying beery spit in her face. Bart looks between the two men in front of her. She isn't getting out of this without a fight.

She punches one of them in the face, then the other. She ducks and misses a punch from the man behind her. She grabs her knives from her boots. She digs her knife into the first man's chest, then slashes the other man across the torso.

* * *

A couple blocks away, a woman realizes she forgot to grab milk. She turns around and walks back to the store. On her way, she hears a disturbance down an alleyway. She hesitates before calling the police. They tell her they'll respond ASAP. The woman hangs up. Distracted by the fight, she doesn't notice that there's an open manhole in her path. She's dead as soon as she hits the ground.

* * *

Sirens wail and the alleyway fills with red and blue light. Footsteps pound down the alleyway away from Bart. A gunshot rings out. The impact of the bullet feels like a punch to the back.

Bart falls to the ground dead.


	2. Chapter 2

Bart is on the park bench on which she'd had lunch, sandwich in one hand and slices of tomato in the other. She doesn't know how she got here. All she remembers is the siren, the men running away, and the punch in the back. Bart looks around her, wondering if she'd slept on this bench and had a nightmare. The same white and orange cat from the other day meanders by. Bart clicks her tongue at it, and it stares at her contemptuously before ducking under a bush.

Bart picks half-heartedly at her sandwich before walking home. She doesn't read newspapers, but she remembers seeing a headline about the mayor yesterday. She tends to notice news about him because his name is Ken. He's in all the headlines again today. She picks up a paper from a bench. It's yesterday's edition, or they misprinted the date.

Bart finds a newsstand. All the papers have the wrong date.

"Can I help you?" asks the attendant.

"I saw all these papers yesterday."

The attendant snorts. A lot of people have been snorting at Bart lately. She's not a fan. "Yeah, sweetheart, the papers are always the same. _Seattle Times, Post-Intelligencer, Argus_, whatever."

"No, they were the same! They were all about Ken. The mayor. And the dates on these are the same as yesterday's papers."

The attendant gets a paper out from under the counter. "This is yesterday's paper," he says, holding it out. The headline doesn't mention Ken at all.

Bart runs away from the booth without saying goodbye.

"You're welcome, lady!" the attendant shouts after her.

Bart finds one of the shops she visited the day before. She goes in and ignores a customer waiting at the counter. She addresses the cashier. "Do you recognize me?"

The cashier, a girl of sixteen or so with pimples on her chin, looks unimpressed. "No." She scans more of the customer's items.

"I was here yesterday! I asked for a job! You don't know me?"

The girl looks back at her, looks her up and down, raises an eyebrow. "No."

Bart leaves the store. She goes to the next one, then the next, then the next. No one remembers her. She collapses onto a bench in despair.

* * *

_And I'm always lost and never found, won't you give me what I need!_

It's a lovely normal day at Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Dirk hums a tune while cleaning the new coffee machine. Farah listens to a true crime podcast with Mona as a pair of headphones. Todd scratches his chin with the end of his pen while he surreptitiously watches Dirk. The shitten is soaking up sunshine in the yard, unaware that her territory is about to be infringed upon by an intruder.

Tina comes in with coffees and tea. "Gooooood morning!" she says.

"Good morning!"

Tina juggles the coffees so that Dirk and Farah can each give her a hug. They talk about Tina's recent vacation before turning on the TV. Tina had heard something on the radio about the mayor stepping down. They stop paying attention to the special about his resignation, but not before laughing at the Folgers incest commercial. Then they have to run to the backyard to separate the shitten and an orange and white cat.

* * *

Bart's minding her own business on the bench where she'd collapsed after no one had recognized her. Her vision starts going blurry. She puts her hands to her head and sees four of her hands. She sees double of everything. Her head feels like it's been split in half. The last thing she knows is thinking, "What is-"

Bart finds herself on a park bench, sandwich and tomato in hand. Pigeons fight over crumbs and pedestrians chatter and laugh, but it doesn't clear Bart's stormy mood. Whatever's happening to Bart isn't fun. Surely she hasn't accidentally slept on the bench for two nights in a row, right? But what about the newspapers and the shopkeepers forgetting her? She supposes she could have gotten in a coma during the first fight and all of this has been a strange dream. Even then there's the question of how she'd get in a coma if she can't get hurt. She decides to go back to Ferran's shop.

"Hi," Bart says.

"Hello, how can I help you?" Ferran replies. He shows no signs of recognition.

"I was here yesterday an' I asked you where we were on the map."

Ferran creases his eyebrows. "I wasn't working here yesterday."

Bart feels like crying. "I was here yesterday an' the day before that, but that was like yesterday, an' the newspapers had the wrong date on them an' I dunno what's happening an' you don' even know me!"

"I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about," Ferran says. "Are you-"

Bart runs out of the shop, tears blurring her eyes, and gets hit by a car.

* * *

Bart isn't surprised, somehow, that she's ended up on the park bench with the sandwich in her hand. This time she doesn't bother trying to figure out what's going on. She goes straight to Ken's work. He's just started this new job and will be there for at least a few months.

"Work" is an overstatement of the things that Ken does for money at the moment. Bart isn't clear on all the arrangements he has, but she knows that most of them pay under the table. Today he's in a big warehouse on the edge of town. She's taken the bus over there a few times, so she knows how to use her ORCA card to pay.

Bart slips between hulking pieces of machinery and cars toget to Ken's office. He's looking at four screens at once.

"Ken," she says. She raises her voice so he can hear her through his headphones. "KEN!"

He spins around in his chair and removes his headphones. "Bart?"

Bart's lower lip wobbles. All she can do is hold her hands out towards Ken.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Ken gets up and takes her hands in his.

Bart shakes her head. "Something is happening an' I dunno what." She pauses to wipe her eyes with the side of her hand. "I think I died. A coupla times. An' then it was like...it was yesterday. The people I asked for a job yesterday an' the other yesterday didn't remember me."

"You think you _died_?" Ken asks. "I thought you were invincible!"

Bart shrugs, tears slipping down her cheeks. "I was. I got hit by a car."

Ken hugs Bart and strokes her hair. She flings her arms around him. Despite the fact that she takes showers now, her hair is still a mess, and he has to be careful not to snag it with his fingers. He waits to see if she'll say anything else.

"Dirk knows about this sort of thing, right?" Ken suggests.

Bart pulls away from Ken and looks up at him. "I think so. I think so, yes. I could talk to Dirk."

"Go talk to him," Ken says calmly. "It'll be okay." He lets Bart go. "I'll see you in a few hours, okay?"

"Yes." Bart nods. "Yes, I will go talk to Dirk, and then I will see you at home." She leaves the warehouse with her distinctive power stride. Ken watches her go before getting back to work.

The bus ride to the agency from the warehouse is long and boring. Bart takes out her phone and starts playing Fruit Ninja. Swiping to slice the fruits in half is a perfect mixture of violent and calming, she thinks, and there's no blood to get on her hands. No smell that sticks with her for days after. She's completely absorbed in the game when the bus drifts into the path of a semi truck.

* * *

_And I'm always lost and never found, won't you give me what I need? _

Dirk soaks up the ambience of a normal day at his very own detective agency. He hardly notices his own humming as he makes coffee with the ease of a man who has made coffee every morning for months. He turns and looks at his friends. Todd is pretending not to look at him and doodling on a piece of paper while Farah gets actual work done, Mona-headphones slung around her neck. Dirk takes the coffee and a ripe red apple to his desk.

Tina comes in, the bell on the door heralding her arrival. She balances a tray of drinks in one hand, her phone in the other, and Dirk goes to give her a hug. He shakes his head as he gets the odd feeling that there is something missing from this hug, and why would that be? A hug is excellent just as it is. He accepts his coffee from Tina and takes a long sip interrupted by feline snarling from the yard.

Dirk has barely gotten the cats separated and taken his seat at his desk when the bell above the door rings. A stranger walks in. She has a shocking amount of curly red hair and looks like she's at her wit's end.

"You guys investigate weird shit, right?"

"That's us!" Dirk exclaims. He fumbles and drops his pen. He bends down to pick it up. When he gets to his feet again, the woman's leaning over his desk so her face is almost in his, palms pressed against the desktop.

"I don't know if you'll believe me, but at this point I don't fuckin care. I've been dying and repeating the same day _over _and _over_ again."

A grin spreads across Dirk's face. "Tell. Me. _Everything_." He offers the woman a chair. She grips the back of the chair and stares into the distance. Dirk poises his pen over his notepad.

"I was walking home the other day, end of a normal day. I had work and then I ran out of cigarettes, so I went to get some more, yada yada. I saw this chick getting in a fight in an alleyway. I decided to call the police and I was distracted 'cause of the fight when I fell into a manhole and died. I woke up-or not woke up, I don't know, whatever it was, I was in front of my door about to walk in. I visited Ruth to talk about it and her house exploded 'cause of a gas leak. The next time I tripped down the fuckin stairs on the way out of my house and DIED. Then I was upset about this whole dying thing so I did a bunch of drugs and died."

By the end of her tale, Farah and Todd have come over to listen, drinks going cold in their hands. The woman's eyes have gotten wilder and wilder. The sight of her telling her story is electrifying. Dirk and the others ask questions and get as much detail as they can.

"Will you find out what the fuck is happening?" she asks.

"Yes!" Dirk says. "Hold on. What's your name?"

"Nadia. Nadia Vulvokov. Like the car but with a U and then 'kov.'" She smiles wanly and shakes Dirk's hand.

"We can definitely solve this, no problem!" Dirk says with a smile.

"I haven't a clue where to start," he admits, after Nadia has left. Dirk looks down at the pages of notes scattered over his desk.

"We'll figure it out," Todd says. "Let's start with the alleyway."

They head out to the alleyway and take a look. Todd cynically thinks to himself that there doesn't seem to be any sign of the fight. Dirk searches for clues with an astonishing amount of energy. He examines the cobblestones, checks behind trash cans, and looks up at the sky. He retraces Nadia's steps, walking past the alleyway and coming to a stop in front of an open manhole. Dirk lowers himself into it and climbs down the ladder.

"If she's come to us today, I guess she hasn't died yet and there wouldn't be any evidence of it," Todd calls down the manhole. Dirk hadn't thought to bring the Everbulb, and it looks awfully dark down there.

"Doesn't hurt to take a look!" Dirk calls back, voice echoing against the walls of the sewer. He hurries up to street level, covered in a layer of dirt and cobwebs, and says, "Okay, that was a dead end. Not literally. I think it went on for a very long, very stinky way." He shudders.

Todd and Dirk stand there for a second, not sure what to do next. Foot traffic flows around them. A woman with headphones in walks by, singing, "_And I'm always lost and never found, won't you give me what I neeeeed_!"

"I don't think that's a coincidence," Dirk says, already walking after her.

Todd grabs his arm and hisses, "You can't just follow random women. That's creepy."

"But that's the song that was on the radio this morning!" Dirk exclaims, tugging free of Todd's grip. He goes to follow her, but she's nowhere to be seen. In the absence of any leads, Dirk sighs. "Any ideas, _assis-friend_?" he asks, hands on hips.

Todd looks around them. Alleyway, manhole, gas leak, staircase. "I don't know if looking at the places where she died will give us any clues. Maybe we could follow her through her day-_with permission, Dirk_-and see if she's clumsy or if there's another explanation."

"That sounds like a good plan, Todd," Dirk says, smiling. They head back to the agency together.

* * *

Bart kicks the bench she's been waking up on. She throws her sandwich at the nearest trash can. She knows she has to get to Dirk, but she's upset enough that she wants to see Ken instead. He's working in the warehouse today, of course, as he will be every single day she wakes up on this fucking bench.

Bart takes the bus. She leans her head against the window, tears slipping silently down her face. Breathing is difficult. The universe has always taken care of her-physically, if not emotionally-and it feels like the rug has been yanked from under her just as she's gotten her footing.

An older lady sitting in front of her turns around. "Are you okay, dearie?" she says. She offers Bart a packet of tissues.

Bart takes a handful of tissues. "I died yesterday," she confesses, voice muffled by the ball of tissues she's pressing to her face.

The lady's eyes glint as she leans forward. "Under capitalism, we all die every day."

Bart doesn't know what _capitalism_ means. She nods slowly, frowning. The woman winks at Bart and turns back around. It's Bart's stop, so she gets up and goes down the aisle, a trail of soggy tissues in her wake.

Bart zips her hoodie up slightly higher and shoves her hands into the kangaroo pocket. It's a short walk from the bus stop to the warehouse, but she's still very glad to step into the warmth. She peers through the warehouse to Ken's office. She realizes that she'll need to explain the situation again.

Oh well.

He's not in. She waits by the door until he's back.

"Bart!" he says. "Everything okay?" She usually doesn't just drop in to his workplaces.

"No." Bart shrugs.

"What's going on?"

Bart goes over to Ken's chair and collapses into it, letting it spin with her momentum. "Don't wanna talk about it."

"Okay." Ken comes over and steers her chair away from his desk, taking his place in front of it in the visitors' folding chair. "Oreo?" He picks up an open packet and holds it out to her.

"Thanks."

They sit in silence. Eventually Ken goes back to work, though he glances over at her occasionally. It's peaceful. The only sounds are Ken's fingers on the keyboard and the gentle clicking of the old radiator. Bart luxuriates in the comfortable near-silence.

"Do you ever feel like…" Bart trails off.

Ken looks up from his keyboard. "Like?"

"...like you're, you're just a little person in a big universe, an' everything kinda sucks?"

"What sucks, Bart?" Ken frowns, but Bart can tell that it's a frown that means he wants to help her, not that he's upset with her. Not that Ken is ever upset with her.

Bart shrugs against the back of her chair, tucking her chin into her chest.

"Is this about..._you know_?" He flicks his eyes side to side, checking for anybody in earshot. Bart is pretty sure none of his coworkers would even blink an eye if he mentioned the fact that she kills people.

"Nah. Just my life." She looks up from under her brows at Ken and says, before he can interrupt, "Not you. Not the house. It's fine. I got it."

"Are you sure? Is someone bothering you? I can have them killed."

Bart can't help a bitter smile. "Nah, I'd kill 'em myself." She sighs. "Killing people just isn' the same as it used to be."

"Well, like I told you, we're in Seattle-"

"I mean...it just doesn' feel like it used to." She shrugs. "I don' really miss it."

Ken doesn't respond to that, and Bart doesn't mind. They just exchange glances. Ken leans over and squeezes Bart's hand. She squeezes his hand in return.

Bart eventually says goodbye to Ken and trudges to the bus stop. She watches as a car comes wobbling down the road and hits an electricity pole. She's not that close to the car, but when the wire hits the ground, she can feel the electricity surging through her body. Luckily she can only feel it for an instant.


	3. Chapter 3

_And I'm always lost and never found, won't you give me what I need_! sings Dirk, off-key, as he makes coffee on a normal morning at the agency. Todd's doing nothing, as usual, while Farah does the budget. Tina comes in with coffees and accepts a hug from Dirk. A scuffle in the yard interrupts the cozy domestic scene. Dirk rushes out and yells at the shitten and a strange cat to stop fighting.

When he comes back in, he notices that all the fruit in the bowl on the counter is rotting. It's particularly odd because they bought the fruit only yesterday. Dirk frowns as he throws the fruit out. The bell above the door rings and a woman with lots of curly red hair rushes in.

"Goddammit!" she says. "I forgot that you wouldn't remember anything I told you! And we can't write it down because _it will just disappear_!"

"Can we _help_ you?" Farah asks, spinning in her desk chair to face the stranger.

"Yes. I'm Nadia, I was here yesterday-uh, today. Now listen up. I don't want to repeat everything I said yesterday. I have died like _five_ times and each time I do I repeat the same day and I want that not to happen anymore because as it turns out dying is _really fuckin stressful_, who woulda thought?"

Farah's hand creeps towards the phone. Who she'd call she isn't sure.

"Okay," Nadia says, rolling her eyes. "Listen. Turn on the TV right now. The news presenter is gonna say that the mayor is resigning. And then there's an ad break and it's the fuckin Folgers incest ad, you know the one, where the girl says her brother coming home is the best fuckin gift she could get."

As Farah does so, Nadia's eyes flick to the street outside, and she sees the orange and white cat trotting away from the agency. "Oatmeal!" she shouts. She pushes out of the agency, doorbell tinkling as she goes. The cat darts across the street and Nadia runs after it. A car whips around the corner. Farah can't even scream before it collides with Nadia, sending her body flying like a rag doll.

* * *

"_And I'm hmmm hmmm hmmm, won't you give me what I NEED_!" Dirk sings along with the radio. Todd looks up at him with an exaggerated frown. Dirk sings the next line even louder. Farah, behind Mona-headphones, doesn't seem to notice. It's such a gorgeously normal day at the agency that Dirk wants to soak up every single moment. He goes to grab an apple from the fruit bowl, but they're all rotting. He frowns and tips the bowl of apples into the trash.

* * *

Nadia heads directly to the agency after her revival. She waits outside, watching through the blinds, until no one is in the front office. She heads inside, puts a paper on one of the stacks on Dirk's desk, and sneaks back out.

Farah notices the bell and goes to check the front office. The only thing in the room besides Farah is a whiff of cigarette smoke.

* * *

Dirk takes his mug of tea to his desk. A piece of paper on top of one of the stacks of paper says _READ THIS DIRK GENTLY! _in red ink. Dirk yelps. His tea goes all over his desk. Dirk picks up the paper, turns it over, and begins to read.

_Dirk Gently - I die almost every fuckin day and then I come back to life and live the same day, rinse and fuckin repeat. I can't stand to come in here every day and tell you the same story when you won't remember it the next time. Don't know what to do anymore. Please help. -Nadia Vulvokov_

Dirk collapses into his chair, still holding the paper. His elbows land in the puddles of hot tea. He yelps again and gets up to rinse the tea from his sleeves.

"Are you okay, Dirk?" Todd asks.

Dirk waves the piece of paper with one hand while busily mopping up the tea with the other.

Todd stares. "Do you want a new shirt? I have a Mexican Funeral shirt in my bag."

"Yes, yes," Dirk says, "but read this!" He throws it at Todd, who watches it flutter to the ground six inches in front of Dirk's feet. He stoops to pick it up, turns it over, and begins to read. Dirk pauses in his ablutions to watch Todd's face journey. It doesn't disappoint.

"Do we believe her?" Todd asks.

"Of course we do, Todd!" Dirk says, shirt half off and undoing more buttons.

Todd shakes his head slowly. "Even if we do-and I'm not saying we do-we don't know anything about what's going on. We can't help her."

Dirk pulls the Mexican Funeral shirt over his head. "That's quitter talk, Todd," he says. "You wanted to quit the Patrick Spring case before you even started it, and think where you would be if you had!"

"More like where I'd be if you hadn't bullied your way into my apartment and ruined my life," Todd grouses. At a normal volume, Todd adds, "Lead the way."

As they leave, the bell above the door tinkles sadly, as though it was looking forward to something-or someone-that never happened.

* * *

Bart frowns down at the bench when she regains consciousness. She throws her sandwich and the slices of tomato at a nearby pigeon, which startles and flies away. Bart starts walking to the agency.

Todd and Dirk stand on the pavement re-reading Nadia's note. Dirk suggests looking for a phone book and finding her number. It takes longer than either of them expected to locate a phone booth with a phone book. The first one they find has had its phone book stolen. On the way to find another phone booth, Dirk feels a tug in the back of his mind and runs down an alleyway with Todd in reluctant pursuit. It seems like a normal alleyway to Todd, though he's sure Dirk has his reasons for exploring it. Dirk comes to a stop in front of a neon sign shaped like a martini glass with an olive. He stands in front of it with his hands behind his back, looking it over.

Todd crouches down to coo at a white and orange cat, who looks at him disdainfully before sticking his leg out and beginning to wash.

"What is it, Dirk?" Todd asks.

"I'm not sure yet." Dirk puts his hands on his hips. "But it feels like something is wrong." He spins in a slow circle, looking at the alleyway as a whole. He takes long strides into the middle of the alleyway and squints at the sky.

Todd leans against the wall and googles _nadia vulvokov_ on his phone. Most of the hits are for her work as a software engineer. She designed some of Todd's favorite video games! It doesn't take long to find her number.

_This is Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency,_ Todd texted her. _Can you give us information to actually help you? I have no idea how we're supposed to figure out what's going on or how to help you._ Todd doesn't normally text all formally like this, of course, but this is a business text.

_dont even tell me how you got my number. i dont know why im dying either. thats why i hired you_

_What do you know already?_

_well, i know it aint drugs. its real. keep dying in stupid ways. fell down the stairs. im not that clumsy_

Todd sighs and shoves his phone back in his pocket. Dirk's making increasingly plaintive kissy noises to try to get the cat to approach him. The cat is not impressed.

Todd's phone rings. "Hey," he says.

"Come back to the agency." It's Farah. "You'll want to see this."

* * *

Farah had had the chance to relax a bit while Dirk and Todd were away. She went out and bought a banana (Dirk had thrown out all the fruit for some reason). She read an article about a dog that was discovered swimming over a hundred miles out at sea, her mouth hanging open slightly as she read. She took a bite of the banana only to realize that she'd bitten into the peel. She smacked her lips together, trying to get rid of the taste and texture of banana peel.

The door opened to admit a woman dressed in a velvety purple hoodie and jeans. It took a couple seconds to identify her as Bart Curlish.

Seeing her instantly threw Farah back in time. Bart was chasing Dirk-Farah stabbed Bart in the leg-Farah was terrified for Dirk-Dirk had said that Bart saved them at the Spring mansion. Farah's breath was stuck in her throat-

Farah took a deep breath. She took another. She counted five things she could see, four things she could touch, three things she could hear, two things she could smell, and one she could taste.

"Bart." Farah took another deep breath and closed her eyes. "Can I help you?" She opened her eyes again. Farah was annoyed to see that Bart didn't look very apologetic.

"Is Dirk here?"

"No. But I'll tell him whatever you have to say later." _An apology, for example._

Bart dropped into the consulting chair and folded into herself like a paper crane. Farah could see her curl her hands into fists. "I think I've been dying. The same day keeps happening to me."

Farah hadn't read Nadia's message to Dirk, since they'd left in a hurry and taken the message with them. She supposed time loops were technically possible. After all, time travel was a thing. Time loops ending in death sounded like Farah's worst nightmare, though, so she would rather remain skeptical. She grabbed the stress ball Todd had given her and massaged it with both hands. "You've been _dying_."

"One time I was on a bus an' it crashed, an' one time I was hit by a car, an' one time I got electrified, an'..." Bart swallowed. "I keep waking up on this bench."

"Couldn't you have fallen asleep on the bench and forgotten about it?" Farah said. She doesn't believe her own words. She couldn't explain away getting hit by a car, and Bart looked devastated. "Hang on, I'm going to call Dirk." By calling Dirk, of course, she meant calling Todd. Dirk didn't answer his phone while on hunches or most other times in general. Farah clenched her phone in her hand as she listened to it ring.

"Hey." Todd sounded exasperated, as usual, and his familiar voice steadied Farah's nerves.

"Come back to the agency. You'll want to see this."

* * *

Todd's intrigued. "What is it, Farah?"

Farah feels like this isn't part of her job description. "Uh, Bart is here." She's acutely aware of the fact that Bart is there and can hear her every word, though now that she thinks about it, Bart is in no state to eavesdrop. "You remember Bart? From the mansion?"

"The murder girl?" Todd asks.

"I'm not sure I would put it that way…?" Farah squeaks. "The _point_ is, she's here and she says she's been dying and reliving the same day."

"HOLY SHIT!" Todd's voice moves away from the speaker. "Dirk, we have to go back, we have a lead!" He speaks directly into the phone again: "See you soon!"

He hangs up. Farah stares at the phone, perplexed by Todd's sudden excitement. A lead, meaning they had a case? What case? Farah gently massages her temples. "Dirk and Todd will be back soon and then we can figure out what's going on, okay?"

"Okay." Bart has unfurled in her seat, though her hands are still in tight fists.

"Do you want...tea...or something?" Farah asks, defaulting to the script she uses with new clients.

"I don' like tea."

"Coffee?"

Bart's face brightens. "Coffee is okay. I have it with milk."

Farah nods. She turns on the coffee machine and the kettle for her, since coffee makes her too anxious. She doesn't feel quite as anxious now as she did when Bart walked in, though she's still unsettled by the situation. How had this happened? Would it happen to Farah? She resolves to avoid getting into a time loop if at all possible.

Farah's almost done with her tea by the time Dirk bursts into the room.

"I got here as fast as I could!" Dirk pants, hands on knees.

"You didn't need to run," Farah says.

"Yes I did! We have a lead!" Dirk straightens up and runs a hand through his hair, suddenly noticing their guest. "Hello, Bart." He and Bart look at each other, unspeaking. Bart looks away first.

"I'm sorry I shot you." Bart doesn't mean it on every level, since she was just doing what she thought she had to, but she is a _little _sorry. She knows how bad a knife to the leg feels. She can extrapolate from there what it feels to get shot in the leg.

"That's quite alright." Dirk looks like the proverbial cat with the canary. "Now, why are _you_ here? And what's the lead Todd mentioned?"

Todd comes through the door, much less out of breath than Dirk. "_She is _the lead, Dirk." Everyone looks at Bart.

No one would say that Bart is a champion storyteller. She loops back and forth between plot points, and her voice trembles with confusion and pain. But eventually they get the gist of the story. Even Todd believes her.

"We have two people both reliving their days," Dirk says, tapping a finger on his chin. "They must be connected somehow. So. Bart, you were in a fight before you died the first time. What killed you?"

"There was a gunshot. I dunno what getting shot feels like, but it felt like someone punched me."

"That's what it feels like," Dirk confirms grimly.

Todd texts Nadia again.

_What were you doing before you died the first time?_

_called the police. saw a chick getting into a fight. fell into manhole_

Todd feels a shiver go down his spine and types as quickly as he can.

_What kind of fight? What did the woman look like?_

_knife fight. didnt see her face, but was wearing purple top_

"-don't understand _why_. Is this because you're one of us?" Dirk asks.

"What, like, holistic? I-"

"Bart," Todd says, nearly tripping over his words in his haste. "What weapons were you using? What were you wearing?"

"Knives. An' I was wearing this. I wake up ev'ry day wearing this." Bart flaps the sleeves of her hoodie at Todd.

"They're connected," Todd says, face shining. "They're _connected_! Nadia Vulvokov was the one who called the cops on Bart's fight!"

"You're a genius, Todd!" Dirk exclaims. "Let's go find Nadia!"

_Can you meet us? Dirk wants you to meet someone who's going through the same thing_

_roanoke park_

Todd frowns at the message. Nadia's a bit brusque.

_We'll be there in ten._

They make their way toward Roanoke Park. It's a chilly day, slightly colder than usual for Seattle, and Todd thinks Bart must be cold in her hoodie. The winter sunshine is weak.

Bart runs towards a bench, shouting "This is where I wake up!" She viciously kicks the bench.

"Oooh! You could act it out for us!" Dirk exclaims.

Bart stands a few feet from the bench. She stabs herself in the heart with an imaginary weapon and dramatically drops to the ground. Then she gets up and sits on the bench.

"I have a sandwich in this hand," she says, holding up her left hand, "and some tomato slices in the other. And there's usually a cat right there." She points to the bushes, and the little cat appears right on cue.

"That's the cat!" Bart says, just as Todd and Dirk exclaim, "I know that cat!" They all stare at each other.

"Dirk," Nadia calls, approaching from across the street. "I'm Nadia." She notices the cat and rushes to scoop him up in her arms. "Oatmeal!"

"You! You were in the store the first day!" Bart says.

"Oh yeah," Nadia agrees, scratching Oatmeal's chin. "Any luck finding a job?" She looks down at Oatmeal and speaks to him in quiet baby talk.

"I've been busy dying."

Nadia smiles wryly. "Sucks, don't it? I'm sure you'll find something. Eventually." She looks at Dirk. "So, what have you detected, Sherlock?"

"We have Bart here!" Todd interjects helpfully. "She was the one you called the cops on."

Nadia looks Bart over. "Huh. That was you? Wouldn't've called it."

Bart shrugs.

"So? How are we connected?" Nadia asks.

"Uhhhh," Dirk and Todd say together.

"What do you have in common?" Todd asks. Bart and Nadia look at each other. They are about the same age and have a growly New York-ish accent. Besides that, they look very different: Bart's wearing her purple hoodie and jeans. Nadia's wearing a polished blouse, slacks, and a pea coat.

"Maybe…" Dirk trails off. Everyone looks around the circle at everyone else.

Nadia crosses her arms. "Right. So this is a complete waste of time. How much am I paying you again?" She doesn't wait for a response. "You, what's your name?" She points at Bart.

"Bart."

"Wanna come to my apartment? Maybe we can get stoned and figure it out."

"What's stoned?" Bart asks, already walking over to Nadia.

"Oh, you are in for quite the night," Nadia says, slinging an arm around Bart's shoulder


	4. Chapter 4

Weed, it turns out, doesn't help them solve the mystery.

Bart's on the couch with her legs over the back and her hair brushing the floor. She lifts her sock feet into the air and wiggles them around. "I kill people. An' now...the universe...is killing me."

"I hear ya." Nadia takes a drag, assuming Bart is being metaphorical. "But when ya _think _about it, who isn't kind of an asshole? Besides, like, Mother Teresa or whatever. Most of us suck. But how many people are stuck in a fuckin time loop?"

"I dunno." Bart lets her legs thump back down onto the couch. "Maybe more than just us."

"I guess," Nadia concedes. "It would be pretty fuckin hard for us to find the others, if there are others." She sets her joint down and runs her hands through her hair. "I could do with a haircut. Fuck it, why not? It'll grow back tomorrow anyway."

Nadia grabs a pair of scissors and hacks out great chunks of her curls, hair falling to the ground in a way almost totally unlike snow. It isn't long before she looks a bit like what Little Orphan Annie would look like if she tried to cut her own hair.

Then she gets out a pair of clippers left behind by an ex and sinks them into her hair. She feels the teeth moving through her curls, snarling when the hair is too long for them to handle. She moves through the guards until all that's left of her hair is a whisper of stubble. Bart watches her with interest from where she's perched on the counter, finishing off Nadia's discarded joint.

"You can shave yours too," Nadia says.

Bart thinks about it. Shaved hair was a Blackwing thing, but Bart is sleepy and content. She thinks it might be nice to take this thing away from Blackwing and have it to herself. She nods and hops off the counter.

Nadia tries to use the scissors, but it's tough going. She goes in with the clippers on the longest setting. She listens to the clippers growl. Nadia could go for a good long growl right about now, or, even better, a scream. Right out the window. The sound would rush around Seattle like a strong wind and make all the neighbors remember the existential terrors they'd hidden in the way-back of their minds.

Bart starts to doze, chin making its way down to her collarbone. Nadia decides to leave her hair as it is for the moment. It's a bit patchy, but it goes with Bart's vibe. Bart runs her hands over her head. Bart smiles like Wednesday Addams, but she seems genuine.

"You're welcome," Nadia says, clapping Bart on the back. "You can sleep in my bed." She points to her bedroom.

Nadia steps over the hair clippings and goes into the living room. She lights another joint and stares out into the street. The streetlamps cast a stark orange light over a spider in the corner of the window sucking the juices from a fly. _The universe is the spider and I'm the fuckin fly_, Nadia thinks. She shakes her head at the self-pity. She smokes the joint down to the roach and goes to sleep on the couch with singed fingers.

She wakes up from a restless sleep to find Bart already awake. She's in the armchair, knees pulled into her chest, arms wrapped around her legs. Nadia wakes Bart gaze out the window. Bart turns her head to look at her, giving Nadia the creeps.

"So, we're alive," Nadia says. It takes more energy than she thought it would to crack a small smile.

"We're alive," Bart repeats. She runs one hand over her newly-shaved head. "I've never made it to the morning before. Is it over?"

"I don't know. Wanna throw yourself out the window and find out?" Nadia laughs.

"No."

"Just joking." Nadia gets up and rummages in the fridge. "Want some potatoes?" She cracks the lid on the tupperware to see the potatoes covered in mold. "God_dammit_!"

Bart cranes her head to see what Nadia's swearing about. "What's wrong?"

"They're fuckin moldy!" Nadia tilts the container towards Bart.

Bart frowns. "No they're not." She gets up and looks at the potatoes from up close. She sees pristine white mashed taters. Nadia sees the same potatoes covered in noxious green mold.

"Timelines," Nadia breathes. "They're continuing without us. And getting all mixed up." She frowns down at the potatoes. "Fuck."

"How do we fix it?"

Nadia shrugs and throws the tupperware into the trash. "Dunno. Let's figure out what's happening first. What were you doing when you died the first time?"

"It was right when the cops came. It felt like I got punched in the back, an' then I guess I was dead."

"Hang on, _right after the cops came_? I fell into a manhole right after I called them. What about the death after the first one?"

Bart considers this. "I woke up on the bench. Then I went into a buncha stores I went to the day before. Nobody remembered me. I gave up an' sat on the bench an' then I died. My head hurt. I didn't know you could die from your head hurting."

"Was that like an hour after you woke up?"

"I'm not too good at time."

"Okay, let's say an hour. I went to Ruth's house that day. She was gonna make me tea, but her house exploded. That was about an hour after I woke up. Was there a day when you were only alive for ten minutes? There was one where I fell down the stairs at my apartment right after waking up."

"Yeah. I went an' talked to the nice man at the store where I met you an' I left the shop an' got hit by a car." Bart frowns. "You think we're dying at the same time?"

"Yes!" Nadia says. She pats her pockets. "I need a celebratory smoke." She finds her lighter and cigarettes and lights up. She takes a long drag.

"What does this mean?" Bart asks.

Nadia gestures with her cigarette. "If we're dying at the same time, we're probably connected somehow, right? It's not just that this is happening to each of us separately. There's some _reason_ why this is happening."

"_Everything is connected_," Bart says. "Right. So what's the reason?"

"That's what we have to find out. Walk me through that first day. You were applying for jobs and then you got in a knife fight? Kudos for that, by the way, that's ballsy."

"Yeah, that's right." Bart doesn't remember that night very well. She was pretty tired, and dying didn't help matters. "What about you?"

Nadia shrugs. "Normal day, I guess. Well, I hadn't found my cat. Went to the store after work to get milk and cigarettes. Then I saw you in that fight and called the cops. Fell into a manhole. I wouldn't recommend it, by the way. It's a shitty fuckin way to die."

"So your cat was lost an' you saw me fighting. An' me looking for jobs. Doesn' seem like anything that would make this happen."

"Nope." Nadia stabs her cigarette in Bart's direction. "We'll have to find somebody who knows about the universe and shit to tell us what might have happened."

* * *

"I think we may have hit a wall, Todd." Dirk's on the floor. He'd researched Nadia and Bart online for an hour (he was not at all surprised to find that Bart had no internet presence). He'd delved into various websites on time travel and time loops, though none of them seemed reliable. He'd pinned a map to the wall and stuck pins into relevant locations in their case. He even connected the pins with yarn. The pins formed a lopsided star, but Dirk wasn't sure how to pursue this and dropped it after half an hour.

Todd thinks that Dirk hasn't been as enthusiastic about cases lately. Dirk is the driving investigative, creative, and energetic force of the agency. Without the full force of his personality, the agency feels flatter than the tire of the car Dirk "borrowed" last week and drove over broken glass. Todd's determined to come up with a lead, or, at the very least, something that will perk Dirk up.

But what?

Todd watches Dirk arrange dust bunnies from under the couch in a neat row, then a heart shape, then a circle. What would prove useful to their case? They don't know how the time loop works. If they did, they would be much closer to fixing it. Who would know how this sort of thing works?

Amanda.

The next step is getting in contact with her. She still hasn't forgiven Todd for lying about pararibulitis, or so Todd assumes. She hasn't been in contact. But Todd supposes she could have gone somewhere with no reception or doesn't have the money to pay for her phone. He suspects that one of her friends? boyfriends? collaborators has smashed her phone. It's worth a shot, anyway. Farah has her number.

"Hey, Farah?" Todd calls, going into the front office.

Farah looks up from her half-cleared Minesweeper board. "Yeah? What's up?"

"You have Amanda's number, right?"

"Oh, Todd," Farah says. Her face does that sympathetic thing Todd hates. "I don't think that'll work."

Todd's face feels hot. "It's not for me. I just thought...she knows stuff about the universe? She might be able to help with our case."

"Oh!" Farah smiles. "Of course. Yeah, I can text her."

"Thanks." Todd smiles back. He automatically reaches for an apple to take to Dirk before he remembers they'd all been thrown out yesterday. He gets a candy bar out of Dirk's secret stash instead. He tosses it at Dirk as he walks into the back office. Dirk fumbles it but catches it just before it hits the ground.

"What's this, Todd?"

"It's from your stash. I just realized-"

"You know about my stash?!"

"You're not subtle, Dirk. Anyway-Amanda might be able to help us. With the case. Farah texted her."

"I love Amanda!" Dirk exclaims. "But how can she help?" He looks so politely puzzled that Todd has to laugh.

"She gets these visions," Todd says. "I don't understand it. But she knows...stuff. She can explain it better than I can."

"Right!" Dirk says. "Let's give it a go!"

* * *

Amanda's halfway to Mexico City when Farah texts her. There's no cell service in Big Bend National Park, but Amanda's phone has been dead for a week anyway.

* * *

One thousand, nine hundred and fifty-two miles away, two women walk across a street and into the path of an air conditioner hurtling at them from thirty stories above. Passers-by are extremely traumatized.

* * *

"_And I'm always lost and never found, won't you give me what I need_?" pleads the radio. "_Tick, tock, make me creep, never ending counting sheep, never get no sleep_!"

Dirk feels a little worn out for reasons he can't quite put his finger on. He's been sleeping pretty well all week, hasn't been working particularly hard, and has been eating well. He and Todd went to an all-you-can-eat restaurant a couple days before. Despite Dirk's protests that he was an English Gentleman and wouldn't eat like an American, he managed to put away plenty of steak and mashed potatoes. He finished it off with soft serve garnished with plenty of sour gummy worms.

Anyway, he feels like he could really use this cup of coffee he's making for himself. He sighs and props his elbows on top of the coffeemaker, looking around at his coworkers. Farah isn't in today. Neither is Mona. Todd's examining Dirk's map of Seattle.

Nothing is particularly amiss, yet Dirk feels odd. He doesn't know why he feels like someone should be knocking at the door right now. He does know, though, that he should chase a feeling like that. He heads out the front door and follows his destiny.

* * *

Nadia comes to consciousness where she always does: in front of her door, keys in hand. She hurls her keys at the ground.

"Fuck!" She crouches down and picks up the pieces of her keychain. It's a little white chess queen, a gift from her friend Alan, and the top has broken off. The break is sharp and jagged.

Nadia feels like the walls of the narrow, fluorescent-lit hallway are closing in on her.

She goes inside, buries her face in a pillow, an s. She doesn't notice the jagged piece of plastic biting into her palm until she drops the pillow and sees the blooming red stain spreading across it.

"Oh, of _fucking_ course," she snarls, enunciating the g. She runs the pillow under cold water with her undamaged hand while examining the other. The cut is messy but isn't that deep. Nadia sets the pillow aside and takes care of her hand. Once she disinfects and bandages her wound, Nadia grabs her purse and heads out the door.

* * *

Bart deals with awakening on her bench by crying. She doesn't normally cry, but this week has thrown that out the window. Passersby stare. Bart glares at a young woman pushing a stroller who crosses the street to avoid her.

"What are you lookin' at, huh?" Bart yells after her.

Bart gets up. She balls up her fists and digs them into her eyes until it starts to hurt. She runs her hands over her head and feels uneven stubble. She doesn't mind in itself that her hair hasn't grown back, since her hair doesn't matter to her very much. But it means that something is wrong. Bart doesn't know what to do about it, so she ignores it. She can worry about it later. Right now she feels wild and energetic.

She picks a random direction in which to walk. Everyone seems to ignore her. It's the way it's been most of her life, but today she wants some human connection. She makes a mental note to go see Ken.

A man in a suit with a phone pressed to his ear bumps into Bart. She body-checks him into the bike lane and watches with satisfaction as he gets hit by a cyclist. She disappears into the resulting chaos before anyone realizes she was the perpetrator.

Bart passes by Nadia's apartment building and stares up at it. She can't tell which is Nadia's from the outside. Bart sighs and continues on her way. All her wild, vindictive energy from before has evaporated. She starts circling back towards the agency in the absence of any better ideas. She stops in to say hello to Dirk and explain the case, but Nadia isn't there. Bart trudges back to her own apartment. The alleyway where she died the first night is on the way, and she stops to look down it.

Two of the same three men are there.

Bart watches them smoke and laugh from the other end of the alleyway. It only takes a second for her to decide what to do. It's not a conscious decision: at this point, it's what she expects of herself.

* * *

Dirk follows his intuition as he wanders through his neighborhood. He stops to buy a candy bar from a nice man who tells Dirk his name is Ferran. Dirk tries to savor the chocolate, but he's never been able to eat slowly. The chocolate is long gone by the time he sees something.

There's a purple hoodie stuffed into the top of a trash can.

Dirk approaches and goes to pull it out of the trash can. He drops the hoodie when he realizes it's wet. His fingers come away red. He sniffs them: it's blood. Dirk wipes his hands on the grass before finding a clean corner of the hoodie and pulling it out of the bin.

It's Bart's hoodie, alright.

Dirk wraps the hoodie in a newspaper from a nearby bench. Carrying the newspaper-covered bundle back to the agency reminds him of buying fish and chips back home in England. This bundle would be much less tasty than fish and chips, though.

* * *

Nadia calculates each of her steps before setting her foot down. She watches the ground for obstacles and the sky for falling objects. She stays as far away from cars and the bike lane as possible. It takes her a while, but she eventually arrives at the agency. She doesn't think that Dirk can solve this, but he and the others might know where to find Bart.

On her way, she passes by an alleyway not too far from Ferran's. She recognizes it as the alleyway where she first died. "You never forget your first," Nadia says, smirking.

Nadia looks down the alleyway to see Bart approaching the men.

* * *

Adrenaline rushes through Bart's veins. She'd forgotten, in the stress of the past few days, how hard it is to fight many people at once. She's used to guns. She's used to single targets. She doesn't mind the challenge, though. At least she feels alive.

She approaches the men, watching their reactions to her presence. So far they're surprised but intrigued. Bart comes closer and stops in front of them. Knives, she thinks, will make them run away like the first time. Her fists will do.

"Afternoon," one of them says, nodding at Bart. She sucker punches him in the gut.

They don't fight back. The man she'd punched is on the ground. The other looks down at his friend before looking back up at Bart.

"What was that-"

Bart punches this one in the jaw. The _crack_ is much more satisfying than the _oof. _He rubs his jaw with one hand and reaches for his phone with the other.

Bart's targets tend to scream, fight back, or plead for their lives. The first time round the men were drunk enough to fight. This time they're sober and sensible. Before she can make a decision, Bart feels a hand gripping her shoulder and pulling her back. She swings around and punches her assailant's stomach as hard as she can.

"_Oof_! It's me!"

Bart tug's out of Nadia's unresisting grip and steps back.

Nadia's bent over double, clutching her stomach. "_Fuck_! _Me_!" She straightens up and goes to push her hair out of her face, but it hasn't grown back either. "Where's-oh, whatever. What the _fuck_, Bart?"

Bart feels like she's had a triumph ripped from her. On the other, fighting unresistant adversaries isn't satisfying. She stands where she is, hands on hips.

"This is what I do," Bart says.

"This is what-you mean, fighting randos in the street? Why the fuck would that be 'what you do'?" Nadia asks. She's frowning but unafraid.

"I'm a holistic assassin," Bart says. She pauses and listens to the sirens that have started to wail. "I kill people. Ones the universe wants me to kill."

Nadia still looks confused and not at all frightened. It throws Bart off. "You _kill _people. Are you having some kind of mental break? You wanna talk to someone? No shame here, I have a shrink. Lotta mental baggage here." She tugs on the large gold pendant she wears.

Bart watches as a police car comes tearing down the street. The police car collides with a trash can bouncing across the road and does a Hollywood flip, skidding several feet down the road upside-down. "We gotta go. I'll explain later." Bart glares at the men as she jogs down the alleyway, Nadia behind her.

"Your apartment is closer," Bart tells Nadia.

"Okay." Nadia frowns. "Like, fuck the police, etc, but running away will only make this worse."

"Not for me." Bart's already at the front door. She waits for Nadia to catch up.

"Right, because _the universe_ wants you to _kill people_. You're telling me you've actually, physically, literally killed someone." Nadia taps her keycard on the door and lets Bart through.

"Hundreds of people."

Nadia stops fumbling with the elevator button and looks at Bart. Nadia looks like she's teetering on the edge of belief, and Bart suddenly thinks that's a bad thing. Ken was okay with the murder. Would Nadia feel the same way? What if she left Bart to solve the time loop on her own?

Bart can't think of anything to say. She waits in silence for the elevator to arrive, playing with the plastic thingies on the ends of her hoodie's drawstrings.

Once they're in the elevator, Nadia addresses Bart. "Okay. I don't know what's going on with you." She lets a beat fall. "But you seem like a pretty okay person, in general. I can work with whatever the fuck is going on with you. After all, I'm pretty fucked as a person myself." She touches her pendant again.

Bart doesn't know how to respond to that either.

Nadia lets them into her apartment. Bart hangs back, unsure she's still welcome, until Nadia waves her in. "C'mon, let's have a drink." Nadia takes a half-full bottle of vodka down from a cupboard and checks her fridge. "Only got ginger beer."

"Ginger beer is good." Bart sits on Nadia's couch and pulls her knees up to her chest.

"What's your, like, vodka to ginger beer ratio?" Nadia asks. She pours herself a drink that's 70% vodka.

"Only a little vodka," Bart says.

Nadia splashes some vodka into Bart's glass and tops it up with soda. "Suit yourself." She settles onto her couch and takes a long sip of her drink. "I was gonna get plastered _before_ I asked you about your backstory, but I'm too curious to wait now."

Bart picks up her glass and takes a little sip. She grimaces and sets the drink down with a _clunk. _"I don' really talk about it."

"Hey, I get it," Nadia says, touching her pendant. "But you just said that you've killed _hundreds of people_. I don't _believe_ it, but I _do_ believe that your past was fucked."

"Why do you keep touching your pendant?"

Nadia looks down at it. She pulls it away from her and lets it thunk back onto her chest. "Ah, I see. Quid pro quo, a little of mine for a little of yours. I'm gonna have to get drunker first." She takes a swig of her drink. Another. "So. Once upon a time there was a little girl. Her mom was…" Nadia stops and gulps her drink. "Her mom was…" She twirls one hand in the air. "Sad, broken, whatever. She had a bunch of money that was supposed to be for the little girl's future. But she spent it all except for one coin. The little girl turned that one coin into a necklace. The end." She clinks her drink with her pendant and takes a gulp that empties the glass. "Cheers."

Bart watches Nadia refill her glass. "I grew up in a prison. For special people." She rests her chin on her knees. "They told me I had to be a weapon."

Nadia freezes, vodka bottle still in her hand. She looks at Bart. "What?"

Bart shrugs. "I dunno why. They came an' took me when I was little. An' they taught me how to kill people."

Nadia gets out a cigarette and lights it, taking a long drag. "Now, I'm not one of those conspiracy theory freaks saying the government is hiding everything from us. Are they hiding _some_ things? Sure. Are they hiding a facility where they do _fucked up things to kids_?" She comes and sits on the couch next to Bart. "Ehhh, it feels more and more likely the longer I think about it."

Bart runs her fingers over her head. "Do you see these?"

"These what?" Nadia cranes her head to look. "Oh, what the fuck?"

"They used to put these things on my head to test me. They left these scars."

Nadia looks up and around the room. She gestures with both hands, drink sloshing in her glass. "Is this some kind of prank? You're gonna come out in a second and tell me I've been filmed this whole time? I dunno how you did the time looping, but that was brilliant. You got me. You got me good." She looks back at Bart and takes another drag.

Bart unfolds her legs from her chest. She reaches over and snags Nadia's cigarette.

"Is this what we're doing now?" Nadia reaches for a fresh cigarette. She stops as Bart presses the business end of the cigarette into her skin. "Fuck, man!"

Bart holds out her forearm and pulls the cigarette away from her skin. She is unburnt and whole.

Nadia frowns and leans forward. "Okay, that's a cool trick. Do it again?"

Bart touches the cigarette to her skin, drags it along her arm, loops back around nearly to her wrist. Then she pulls it off to reveal that she hasn't been burnt.

"How are you _doing _that?" Nadia asks.

Bart frowns down at her arm. "I don't know," she admits. "Usually I can't get hurt, an' I can't be locked up, because the universe has a purpose for me an' I follow it. But I've been dying, so... I can get hurt. I guess. Can I see your lighter?"

"Go nuts," Nadia says, passing Bart the lighter.

Bart flicks it with her thumbnail and watches it ignite. She holds the flame up to her other hand. It doesn't affect her at all.

"What. the fuck," Nadia breathes. She pulls Bart's hand toward her to look more closely. Bart jerks away from her. "Oh, sorry. Lighter, please?"

Bart passes her the lighter, careful not to touch Nadia's hands.

Nadia ignites the lighter and holds it up to her own skin. "That burns, alright!" She flaps her burnt hand and tucks the lighter away with the other. She looks up at Bart, who is too busy thinking to try to parse Nadia's expression.

Bart is still, in at least some senses of the word, invulnerable. It isn't as reassuring as she thought it would be. Obviously she can be killed. Temporarily. What had she told Nadia? Bart couldn't get hurt because the universe had a purpose for her. That time she'd gotten stabbed, she wasn't following the universe's purpose, not that she had known it at the time. What if the deaths were because of something she was doing wrong? It seems like an extreme way to get the message across, but the universe has always worked in mysterious ways. It makes sense in a twisted sort of way. Being punished for doing the wrong thing, but still being invulnerable so that she could-

"Bart?" Nadia waves her fingers in front of Bart's face.

"I'm dying because I'm doing something wrong!" Bart says.

"You are?"

"I was prob'ly s'posed to kill somebody an' didn't! An' now I'm dying!"

"What about me, then?"

Bart drums her hands on her thighs. "I think, I _think_, it's those dudes in the alleyway I'm s'posed to kill. An' you called the cops, which made them run away, so I couldn't kill 'em!"

"God, how could I have been so stupid?" Nadia snarks, but she's caught up in the excitement too. "So if you go kill them we could get out of this?"

"I think so!" Bart jumps up, smiling huge.

"Oh, are we doing this right now?" Nadia says. "I was gonna have another cigarette."

Bart stops and looks at Nadia. "I guess...those men might not be there." She deflates. "We could look tomorrow? Or if we die again?"

"Yeah." Nadia lights a cigarette. "Don't worry, kid, we're gonna figure it out! And hopefully we'll reset one more time so our hair will come back."

Bart laughs and runs her hands over her hair. "I don' mind."

"Let's fix it, then, shall we?" Nadia asks. She stands up, setting her glass on the coffee table, before following Bart to the bathroom. She shaves Bart's head more evenly than the night before. Then Bart goes over Nadia's hair a bit. Bart sits on the counter while Nadia stands up. Bart can feel and smell Nadia's boozy breath on her face. She moves the clippers over Nadia's head, making sure the shave is as good as she can make it.

"So, Bart, do you have any other names? Last, middle?"

"Curlish," Bart says. "I dunno if I have a middle name."

"Curlish." Nadia rolls it around her mouth. "Bart Curlish. That's nice."

"What are your other names?"

"I'm Nadia Irena. If I was from the old country it would be, what, Nadia Paulevna Vulvokov. Paul was my old man. Paul's not a very Russian name, though."

"Nadia Irena's nice."

Nadia's mouth twitches. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess so."

Bart finishes shaving Nadia's head and jumps off the counter. They stand side-by-side and look at their new 'dos.

This is the first time Bart's seen herself since the first shave. It scares her a little to see herself without her curtain of hair. It leaves her bare and open to view. But it was her choice, and it feels oddly good.

It's late evening by the time they're done. Nadia tells Bart that she's going to go out with friends. Bart's welcome to come with or stay at Nadia's. Bart declines both in favor of going to see Ken. Bart surprises both Nadia and herself when she puts her arms around Nadia and squeezes. Nadia dubiously pats Bart's back with open hands, but then she gives in. Nadia pulls Bart in and gives her a squeeze.

"Okay, so, whenever you can, you go kill those guys, right?" Nadia says. "Take care of yourself, kiddo."

"Right," Bart agrees. They head down to the parking lot together and Nadia shows Bart how to order a Lyft. Before she knows it she's speeding off to Ken's. It has been a long day.


	5. Chapter 5

Dirk realizes it is later than he thought when he gets back to the agency with Bart's blood-soaked hoodie. The doors are shut and locked and the lights are off. Dirk looks into the building he's poured his heart and soul into. The streetlights cast a weak orange light against the fancy desk, the cozy client armchair, and the potted plants. Dirk puts a hand up against the glass, feeling the cold seeping into it, before trudging home.

He kind of wants to call Bart and ask about the hoodie. It probably isn't her blood, and she can _definitely_ take care of herself, and she'd barely apologized about the whole shooting incident, but he still feels a sort of kinship to her. He hopes she's okay. He sets the package on his dining room table and watches it for a few minutes. Todd comes in from the living room, mug in hand, and evaluates the scene with one raised eyebrow.

"It's Bart's hoodie," Dirk tells him. "It's covered in blood."

Todd's face fights a fast and furious civil war. Concern wins against apathy. "Is she okay?"

"I don't know." Dirk makes a face at the package. "I _think_ so. But I don't _know _so. Shall I find out?"

Todd picks apart the layers of newspaper to reveal the hoodie. He makes a face. "Yeah, we should."

Dirk sighs. "How would we even get in touch with her?"

Todd shrugs. "Let's go look for her around where you found the hoodie."

Dirk leads the way to the trash can. They move out around it in circles. Bart is nowhere to be found. They take a break to go get greasy pizza at a little hole in the wall and come back to the trash can. They see Bart walking along the opposite side of the street. They shout and wave their arms as they run after her.

"Bart!"

Bart turns her head to look at them. She's wearing only her white shirt and jeans, despite the cold, and her jeans are spattered liberally with blood.

"Bart?" Dirk ventures. The spark in Bart's eyes has gone out. She looks listless, with her head lolling to one side. "What's going on?"

Bart looks away from them and continues down the sidewalk, repeatedly swiping her blood-covered palms along her jeans. It doesn't help. Dirk starts after her, but Todd grabs his arm and pulls him back.

"I don't think we can help her," he whispers to Dirk. Dirk is crying, little tears slipping from the corners of his eyes. Todd moves his hand from Dirk's arm to his back, trying to be reassuring, but Dirk breaks into a jog and goes after Bart.

"Bart?" he says again. "Bart, look at me." Dirk reaches out and takes her arm. To his surprise, Bart doesn't seem to mind. She stops moving but doesn't look at Dirk.

"Did you kill someone?" Dirk moves around to stand in front of Bart.

Bart nods.

Dirk nods in response. "Okay. That's okay. Why are you upset?"

Bart doesn't respond.

"Is Ken okay?"

Bart nods.

"Is someone else hurt?"

Bart nods.

"Can we help them?"

Bart shakes her head.

"Are they dead?"

Bart nods. A few tears leak from her own eyes. She brings a hand up to wipe them away. It leaves a streak of blood across her face.

"Who is it?" The pit of Dirk's stomach feels icy cold. He glances at Todd, who's come up next to him, and Todd squeezes his hand reassuringly before dropping it.

"Nadia," Bart whispers.

Dirk's stomach drops. "_Fuck_. What happened, Bart?"

Bart shakes her head rapidly. She pushes between Dirk and Todd, breaking into a jog, then a run.

"We have to follow her!" he and Todd say together. They jog behind Bart, Todd complaining now and again about how out of shape he is.

They can see her about one hundred yards ahead of them. Her bright white shirt makes her a beacon in the darkness.

Then she's gone. One moment there, the next completely invisible.

"Where did she go?!" Dirk picks up the pace. He and Todd's footsteps echo against the nearby buildings. Even though it is only nine p.m. or so, it feels much later. A chilly breeze tugs at Dirk's jacket.

He and Todd catch up to the last place they saw Bart, but she is gone without a trace.

* * *

Bart is not in the mood for her Lyft driver's small talk. She looks out the window, arms crossed, and doesn't respond to any questions. The driver gives up after the third unanswered question. Bart marinates in her thoughts about the task ahead of her. The only thing different about this job is the fact that it's planned ahead of time (except, of course, she had hunted down Dirk over a long period of time). Something about it doesn't feel right, but she's not sure what. She's glad to be distracted by the sight of Dirk and Todd running across the road, waving their arms as they go. It's objectively odd, but it isn't like it's out of character for either of them. Bart looks down to fiddle with her zipper just before she would have seen herself, sans hoodie, standing on the sidewalk with Dirk and Todd.

She gets out of the Lyft when they arrive at her apartment. "Thank you," she says. She doesn't have cash for a tip, but she pats her pockets and finds two green apple toffee candies. "Here you go," she says, passing the driver one of the candies. She gets out of the car and hurries up the steps of their building. As she does, she unwraps the other candy and pops it in her mouth.

There's a figure making her way up the stairs ahead of Bart. She has a white shirt and a buzzcut like Bart. She takes a long time between steps. Bart catches up and glances at the other woman.

Bart sees her own face.

This woman with Bart's face looks so tired.

Bart starts choking on her candy. She pounds on her chest, tries to cough up the candy, tries to take in a breath. None of it works. The pain in her throat worsens. Bart sits down on one of the steps.

Time slips away at a breakneck pace. Bart begins to panic. She can't seem to focus on the problem. Instead, disjointed images from the past few days flicker through her mind-Oatmeal, clumps of hair on the floor, cigarettes, Farah, coffee. Bart concentrates on redirecting her thoughts to her throat. By now, though, she is calm. After all, she's died several times already. What does one more death matter? She knows the key to stopping it now. She'll finally be free tomorrow-hah-today.

Bart's brain is slowing down. Why? What's happening to her? Why does her throat hurt? What's going on?

The last thing Bart sees before her death is Ken's face hovering above her.

* * *

Somewhere far, far away, and yet as close as a second skin, one timeline frays into two separate threads.

* * *

Bart can't disentangle past and present. Her hands fly up to her throat. She gulps for air. Fresh air streams into her throat-she can breathe again! She can feel her hair dangling around her face. She closes her eyes and tries her best not to cry. Finally Bart stands up and looks around her. It's quiet in the park, unlike the other days. The crowds of tourists are gone. Oatmeal doesn't walk past. It feels like the end of the world.

Bart picks a random direction and starts walking. She'd thought she'd be raring to kill those dudes, but...she's not. She remembers making lemonade from real lemons as a kid. She and her mom squished the lemon halves into the juicer until there was no juice left, and that's what she feels like. Drained.

Bart finds her feet taking her to the agency. It surprises her at first: she's already solved the mystery. She realizes that it's about reassurance.

The doorbell chimes as Bart enters the front office. Dirk dances in the corner by the coffee machine as a pop song drifts from the radio. There is no one else there.

Dirk turns around. "Bart? What are _you _doing here?"

Bart crosses her arms and levels her gaze at him. "Long story. But I'm going to fix it. I'm going to do what the universe wants me to do."

"Just as long as the universe doesn't want you to kill me. Or Todd. Or Farah."

Bart rolls her eyes, something she learned how to do recently. "No, it doesn't." She's torn between the desire to tell Dirk the story (again) and the desire to go end this time loop torture as soon as possible. "Dirk? Do you ever...want...not to be like this anymore?"

Dirk opens and closes his mouth. He furrows his eyebrows. "Holistic, you mean?"

"Yeah."

Dirk shrugs. "Would you like to sit down?"

"No."

Dirk sits down, still frowning. "I don't know if I can answer that, Bart. I don't know what I would be if I weren't like this."

"Do you ever get tired of it?"

"Sometimes. But it gives me purpose." He waited to see if she would speak. "But I just put pieces together. I can see why it would be harder for you."

Bart shakes her head slowly. "I've never thought any different, either. An'...I don' know." She looks down at her hands. "I'm going to go kill some people for the universe, Dirk. An' I don' really want to. But if I don't, this terrible thing will keep happening to me an' my friend."

"Isn't there some other way you can stop it?"

"I don' think so."

"Oh." Dirk frowns. "What's this terrible thing?"

Bart looks at Dirk. She can't stand to explain it all again. She shrugs. "It doesn' matter. I'll handle it."

She starts crying as soon as she leaves the building. She goes to a coffee shop across the street from the alleyway, still crying. She settles into a corner table with a good view.

"Are you okay? Can I get you anything? On the house."

Bart looks into the kind eyes of a waitress. "Okay." She swipes her forearm across her eyes. "Thanks."

"What would you like?"

"Chocolate," Bart decides, sniffling. The waitress returns with a slab of brownie. Bart digs right in.

Her tears abate as the brownie disappears. When it's all gone, she wipes her eyes and looks out the window again. Light is fading fast. It was very dark the first night she died. Bart should wait until she can guarantee the men would be drunk again.

Bart orders another brownie, then another. At some point she orders a cocktail and has a party all by herself. Then, when she remembers her mission, she leaves some money on her table and slips out the door. She feels a little funny as she walks across the street, but she could hold her own in a fight with both arms tied behind her back. A little booze is no obstacle.

She strides into the alleyway for the final showdown.

There are only the two men, like before. "Where's your friend?" she calls out to them, and they cheer in response.

"Come be our friend!" they say as Bart gets closer.

"No thanks!" she says. She sinks her fist into Man #1's gut.

While ducking and weaving, Bart gets all turned around so that she's facing the opposite end of the alleyway than before. She can see Nadia down at the end of the alleyway looking horrified. She's getting her phone out.

Bart doesn't know why Nadia looks frightened. She was perfectly on board with the plan, after all. Bart wants her not to be scared. She ducks a punch from Man #1 and jogs over to Nadia.

"Look out!" Nadia shouts, and Bart ducks. She sees a bullet whizzing through the space her head had been a second before.

Nadia starts running, but Bart shouts "STOP!" and Nadia obeys.

"There's a manhole!" Bart pants. She and Nadia navigate around the manhole before hitting the pavement. Nadia remembers someone once telling her to run away from a gunman in a zig-zag pattern. Bart, as someone normally immune to bullets, doesn't run away from gunfights and hasn't heard about this technique.

"What are you doing?" she calls to Nadia.

"Makes me harder to hit!" Nadia calls back.

Bart decides to adopt the zig-zag style as well. It's not at all a natural way to move. She has to keep looking down at her feet to make sure she doesn't trip. Just as Bart gives up and starts running in a straight line again, Nadia comes to a stop beside her. Nadia darts into a little cafe and Bart follows.

"Could you see them behind us?" Nadia says. "I didn't hear them running."

Bart gets up and glances out the window. "No."

"Who the fuck are you and how do you know my name?"

"I'm Bart." That's the easiest question to answer. Bart doesn't know how to tackle the rest. "We're, uh, connected. We've been trying to figure out how not to die anymore."

"How not to _die_?"

"Yeah."

"Good evening, ladies, can I get you something to drink?"

Bart and Nadia look up at the waitress.

"No thanks," Bart says, just as Nadia says, "Do you have booze?"

The waitress hands Nadia a menu. Nadia doesn't open it. "Something strong, please. I don't care what it tastes like." The waitress nods and leaves.

"Are you off your rocker?" Nadia asks. An edge of hysteria comes through her casual tone.

"You're Nadia Irena," Bart says. "You told me what your name would be if you were in Russia but I don't remember it. Nadia...Paulina...Vulkov?"

Nadia frowns. She looks frightened now, but in a different way to the way she'd been in the alleyway when faced with a fight. "I don't tell anyone my name. Why would I have told you?"

"We were in your apartment shaving our heads. You asked my name and then I asked yours."

Nadia shakes her head. "I've never shaved my head. What's my apartment like?"

Bart closes her eyes. She describes the apartment, going into detail on the bathroom. "An' you told me about your necklace."

Nadia clutches her pendant. "What did I tell you?"

"You said your mom spent all the money she was s'posed to keep for you. Except one coin."

Nadia accepts a glass of clear brown liquid from the waitress and knocks it back. "I'm sorry, this is too much." She stands and hands the waitress some money. "Keep the change."

Bart stands up too. "Nadia-"

Nadia shakes her head. "I don't know how you found all that out, but you need to stay away from me." Her voice shakes slightly.

"But it's all true! An' I don' wanna do this without you!" Bart says.

Nadia turns and leaves.

Bart collapses back into her chair. She isn't the best at these situations, but she's pretty sure she isn't going to be able to change Nadia's mind. So what should she do? The thought of going back to face the men is enough to make her want to cry again.

So she won't.

Bart gets up and walks out of the cafe. She doesn't have a destination in mind. She wants to walk and forget about everything on her mind.

Halfway down the block, Nadia comes to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk. Her memories come back to her in a trickle that widens into a flood. She jogs back to Bart.

"Bart!"

The two women run to each other and embrace.

"You remember me?" Bart asks breathlessly.

"I do! So what now?"

"Dunno." Bart looks out into the night. "I just know I'm not killing those dudes."

"Okay," Nadia says. They walk down the sidewalk, arm in arm.

* * *

"Goddammit!" Nadia finds herself in front of her door once more. She looks down at her keychain, which is whole once more. "Why'd you have to go and die, Bart?" She lets herself into her apartment and has a glass of OJ. Nadia has no way of knowing whether Bart died while fighting or if it was something stupid-not without asking, anyway. Nadia could go find out and make sure Bart is okay, but she doesn't want to get mixed up in the murder. And isn't Bart supposed to be impervious to harm?

In the end, though, Nadia remembers watching Bart looking at herself in the mirror as her hair fell away. She looked as fragile as a baby bird. So Nadia sighs and leaves her apartment for an unknown destination. She'll check the alleyway first, since it's closer to her apartment, then the agency. Bart isn't at the alleyway. She's not at the agency, either. Nadia hurries away before Dirk comes out to ask her who she is and why she's looking through the front window without knocking. She goes to Ferran's to get a coffee and wait for Bart to arrive at the alleyway, but Bart's already there.

"Hi. Would you please hire me?" she asks Ferran.

"Hey, Bart. Generally speaking you don't go ask for a job like a week after you first get rejected." Nadia makes an apologetic face at Ferran.

Bart looks around, frowning. "Who are you?"

"Ha ha, very funny. Come on, don't you have something you're supposed to be doing today?"

"Yeah. I'm s'posed to be looking for jobs today." Bart looks at Ferran again. "So?"

"Bart-"

Ferran looks Bart over, eyebrows knitted. "I…can take your resume, if you have one…" he offers. "What's going on, Nadia?"

"I don't have a resume," Bart says. "I've never had a job before."

"I don't know, Ferran, my friend doesn't remember me!" Nadia reaches out and touches Bart's arm, remembering too late Bart won't like it.

Bart jerks away from her touch and glares at Nadia. "What do you want?"

"You really don't remember me?" Nadia says.

"I've never met you before!"

"Ah, fuck. Okay, okay. Here, Bart, can we talk outside?"

"How do you know my name?" Bart asks, but allows Nadia to lead her outside. Nadia gives Ferran a thumbs-up over Bart's head. He still looks concerned.

"I know you, Bart, because…" Nadia changes tack. "A couple days ago you were on my couch drinking vodka and telling me about growing up in some weird prison for...uh, anyway, some weird prison. You showed me the scars on your head."

Bart's hand flies to her hair. "You know about Blackwing?" Her face flickers from confusion to fear. "Are you from Mr. Priest?"

"Nope."

"You're not going to take me back there?"

"I have no idea what it is. Listen to me, Bart. We have been dying and reliving the same day over and over again. The day you died, you got into a fight with some men, and you told me you thought the universe told you to kill them, and we were stuck in this loop because you didn't listen."

"That sounds like something I'd say." Bart frowns. "But then why don't I remember you?"

"The timelines have been kinda fucked. Maybe there's a me out there who doesn't remember you."

Bart closes her eyes.

"What would you want me to do if I remembered you?" Bart says finally.

"You were supposed to go kill those guys in the alleyway. So, that, I guess."

"I said I was supposed to kill them? Are you sure?"

Nadia's surprised to see Bart look...tired. Sad. "Yeah, you did."

Bart sighs. "Okay. I don't know where the alleyway is. You'll have to take me."

"Okay." Nadia doesn't know if she's doing the right thing anymore. It's bizarre that Bart is going along with it. Nadia gets the sense that she's missing some key piece to Bart's puzzle. Even so, she leads Bart down a few blocks to the alleyway. Bart stands at the entrance, thrown into shadow by a dumpster, and takes a couple knives out of her boots. She looks past the edge of the dumpster at the two men standing by the martini glass sign.

"There are only two of the three," Nadia says.

Bart shrugs. "Might as well do these two." She watches them for a while longer. "I can feel it. They're important. I felt the same about Dirk Gently, an' I thought I was s'posed to kill him, but I guess I wasn't. But I heard his name in my head, an' I don't normally hear names, I just feel like it's what I'm s'posed to do." She looks down at her knives, glowing orange from the streetlamp a few feet away. "What if I'm not s'posed to kill these ones? What if they're like Dirk?"

She looks at Nadia. Opens her mouth, closes it, looks away.

Nadia looks down at her feet. "You know, you don't have to do it if you don't want to."

"It's not s'posed to be about what I want." Bart looks down at her knives. "I'm s'posed to be like one of these. I'm a tool in the hands of the universe." She looks back at Nadia. "But, you know, killing people doesn' solve everything. Sometimes it makes things bad. An'...I don' think I like it anymore." Bart looks pale and forlorn. "I don't!" She almost laughs. "I don' like this, but if I don' do it, we'll keep dying!"

Nadia's entirely out of her depth. "That was your theory, but maybe you were wrong."

"You think so?"

"I mean, all I know, all I've been learning, is that the universe is fucked!" Nadia throws her arms into the air. "I mean, fuck, you grew up in a prison! I grew up with my mom! So the answer could be anything, anything at all!"

Bart and Nadia stare at each other. The moment stretches on, each woman recognizing the other's pain, fear, and determination.

"I won't kill them," Bart says. Her voice starts out soft but grows in strength. "I won't. But we'll figure this out together."

"So what next?" Nadia asks.

Bart shrugs and smiles. "I have no fuckin idea," she says, imitating Nadia's tone, and Nadia laughs. She offers her arm to Bart, who links her own arm through it, and they walk away from the alleyway.

"Wait, I don't think I used that phrase in front of you today," Nadia realises.

Bart cocks her head. "It just felt right." She frowns. Memories have begun to trickle into her mind: memories of Nadia's incessant swearing, Nadia shaving their heads, and smoking together..

"Nadia! I remember you!"

Nadia grins. "Fuck yeah."

They continue down the sidewalk together.

* * *

With that, the two threads from the one timeline weave back together, making themselves into one whole timeline again. One Nadia and one Bart walk down the sidewalk and into their future.

* * *

Bart and Nadia's lives change with a whimper, not a bang. In theory they may never know for sure that they are free from the loops. They know, though. There's no more suspiciously moldy fruit. Crowds of tourists have returned to Roanoke Park. Everyone is back at the Agency where they belong. Bart even sees all three of those men hanging out in that alleyway one night. And, of course, neither Bart nor Nadia have died in some unlikely way, or in any way at all.

Nadia pours them both drinks.

"Well, we did it, hey?" Nadia clinks her glass with Bart's. "Thank god."

Bart wrinkles her nose. "I don't think God had much to do with it."

"My God, your "universe"-well, to tell the truth, I don't believe in God either." Nadia knocks her drink back.

"Is it over?"

Nadia shrugs. "I don't know if we can know for sure. But something feels right, you know?"

Bart inclines her head and listens to the silence for a moment. "Yeah. Y'know, I think maybe it was because I decided not to kill them. That's when I got my memory back, and when you got yours."

"That's a good point," Nadia says. "There's probably a moral in there somewhere. Anyway, what should we do with all this time now that we aren't spending it figuring out how not to die?"

Bart shrugs. "I should go get a job."

Nadia looks at Bart over the rim of her glass. "What kind of job are you after?"

"I don' really know what jobs there are," Bart says.

"I could see about getting you something at my work. Nothing fancy, just making coffees and shit, but it would be something."

"I can make coffees."

"Nice."

Nadia and Bart smile at each other.

"Oh," Bart says, after taking a long drink of slightly flat ginger beer. "I was s'posed to get a job because Ken thought I could use some friends. But I think I have a friend now."

Nadia smiles. "Yeah, you do. But you could still use a job, hey?"

"Yeah." Bart sighs. "I guess so." She takes another sip. "Why can't we all just have what we need?"

"Capitalism, my friend."

"This old lady on the bus told me that word the other day. What does it mean?"

Nadia laughs. "Oh, it would take a long time to explain. Suffice it to say we need jobs if we want to live."

"That's bad," Bart says, making a face.

"Sure is." Nadia raises her glass. "To us, surviving this time loop shit only to remember that capitalism exists."

"To us," Bart says. "I don't have to say that whole sentence, do I?"

"No, Bart, you don't."

* * *

Bart gets the job at Nadia's work. They give her a lanyard with her very own identification card. To Nadia's consternation, Bart's picture on her ID actually looks good. It doesn't take long before Bart's zipping around the office delivering drinks, running errands, and making friends. Her directness catches her coworkers off guard, but many of them find it refreshing. They invite Bart to join the lunchtime crowd.

Both Bart and Nadia drop in to the agency from time to time. Nadia can be brusque at times, which doesn't go down too well with Farah and Tina, but Todd likes her. So does Dirk.

"Mornin'," Bart says, coming into the agency.

"Hi!" says Dirk. He waves at Bart from behind his desk. "Have you met Amanda?"

"Hi," Bart says, nodding at Amanda. "Who are you?"

Amanda laughs. "I'm Todd's sister." She's tan from her trip to Mexico. Her long hair, shaved on one side, is up in a French braid. "Nice to meet you!"

"You don't look like Todd."

"That's true. I'm much hotter than Todd."

"Hey!" Todd says, but he can't hide his smile.

"So how do you know everyone?" Amanda asks.

"We've been in some life-or-death situations together," Bart says. Todd snorts.

"Cool." Amanda smiles. "I like your hair."

Bart reaches up to touch her head. After everything had been sorted out, Bart opted to shave her head again. "I like yours, too."

"Farah braided it for me." Amanda smiles over at Farah.

"Can you show me how to do braids, Farah?"

"Oh. Sure, why not?" She puts down her pen and scoots over to Bart and Amanda in her spinny chair. She takes out Amanda's braid and does it again, explaining to Bart as she goes. Then she undoes the braid and lets Bart try. She's surprisingly good. They quickly move on to more complicated braids.

They all hear a snarling from the garden and rush out to look. Just as they get to the window, though, Oatmeal and the shitten stop fighting and cautiously approach each other. They sniff each other and rub against one other. Then they flop onto the ground to relax.

"That's so cute!" Amanda says. Everyone in the agency stands and enjoys the sight of the two cats for a while.

It's a deliciously normal day at the agency.


End file.
